KwaZulu Natal has staked its claim as one of Africa’s most coveted business, meetings and bleisure tourism destinations at Meetings Africa this week.
Acting CEO of Tourism KwaZulu-Natal (TKZN), Sibusiso Gumbi, said the KZN Convention Bureau (KZNCB) went all out to lobby for more conferences to come to the Zulu Kingdom which has many large and small conference facilities, including the Durban International Convention Centre (ICC), which has won several global awards.
TKZN was looking to take full advantage of developing trends such as bleisure travel – a hybrid of leisure and business travel – an ideal fit for the province’s cultural and nature-based experiences.
“KZN, with its diverse tourism offering, short travel distances between major cities and the revival of small airports like Mkuze, Ulundi and Margate, make the province the ultimate bleisure tourism destination. This will ultimately drive a greater tourism impact in the economy of the province benefiting the entire tourism value chain including community-based tourism,” said Gumbi.
He noted that the KZNCB had so far secured 11 high-profile conferences and meetings that will attract attendees from across the globe. Amongst these are the African Union – AfCTA Council of Ministers Meeting, IUCN World Leaders Forum, Ecocity World Summit, and the XIX World Water Conference 2025, which alone is estimated to bring as much as R430 million (€20.6m) to the KZN economy.
According to the Durban ICC 2022/2023 annual report, it contributed R5.7 billion (€273.8m) to South Africa’s GDP and has created or sustained almost 11 000 jobs.
Gumbi pointed out that, by attracting mega business events and many smaller conferences across the province, the KZNCB played an important role in the recovery of the KZN tourism sector.
To ensure that buyers get a good sense of the spread of facilities, from business to leisure offered by the province, the KZNCB Pavilion included iLembe Enterprise Development Agency, Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife, Olive Convention Centre, Moses Mabhida Stadium, Ray Nkonyeni Municipality, uMhlathuze Local Municipality and an SMME conference planner, Hot Toffee Communications.
Post Meetings Africa, the KZNCB will be hosting international buyers from the US, France, Spain, Italy, Germany and Azerbaijan on a tour of Durban and the South Coast. Post tours provide interested international buyers with an opportunity to experience the destination and its conference venues first hand.
